Science vs. Spirituality.

Spirituality is not a tool. It is a baseline, reference-point, from which to live life. Not having a baseline, one is able to say things like: "spirituality is simply a tool".

This sounds real important but ultimately is vague and doesn't communicate much (at least to me). Anything can be used to create a foundation or system to use as a reference point when interacting with the world. Choosing some vague notion of "spirituality" seems arbitrary at best.

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In fact a life that lacks spirituality is not a life at all. I know this because I used to have no spirituality. I had no way of knowing it was essential to life. Now that I do know, I do what I can to share the revelation.

Its a failure to adapt to reality. There is no shortage of people who are "lost" and looking for something outside of themselves to give their life meaning. The meaning can only come from within but that also means its a highly subjective thing. Science cannot provide this and it has never been its purpose to. Inventing something completely delusional to give your life meaning is perfectly fine if its producing positive and effective results but lets not pretend its something more than it is. The problems with people in society today aren't exactly related to a lack of spirituality. It seems more to be rampant individualism and a deterioration of basic social skills. Religion could provide for more cohesive and collective unity within the population but so could any number of other things. Man wants to be both an individual and part of a collective at the same time yet sometimes these two things are at odds with each other.

Also, there always seems to be some faux elitist undercurrent to everything. Masturbation really does seem to be the bottom line when dealing with humans.Yes listening to people ape atheist dogma is annoying. But so is watching people chase their tail around in circles in a vain attempt to separate themselves from the crowd. Pariahs and outsiders are especially susceptible to this type of behavior. When talking about spirituality theres always a vibe of superiority surrounding it and the same thing could be said for atheists.

Science: build a lightning machine to duplicate what already happens naturally (potentially useful, admittedly). toil for years in a lab.Spirituality: put your feet up and wait for real lightning to occur of its own accord. enjoy the storm from your porch.

Further, without the real lightning in the first place, man would never be able to re-create lightning in the lab.

Along these same lines, I recall the stories of Pentti Linkola when man will introduce a foreign species to an environment in hopes of getting rid of a pest. The foreign species may very well get rid of the pest, but then becomes a problem itself and the cycle repeats. The spiritual approach would be to accept destiny, obey the will of the universe and its unfathomable cycles. There are too many moving parts.

Not being able to conceptualize something is normal. Undermining someone who can, seems, unfortunately, to be normal, too. But damaging to the larger whole.

People are free to do with their lives as they please. But if results are the aim, then I have something to contribute. Why not just let me do that, and if you disagree, do it on your own fuckin' time. How absurd is it, to disagree with something you clearly can not even detect?

Truth is, when you have no idea of what's going on, you have no contribution to make, other than ridicule. From where you are, that ridicule looks like you being immensely clever. From where anybody who is able to see this thing, is, that you can not see, from where you are, it justs looks like a clown trying to make people laugh. And there's nothing quite so embarrassing as a clown who fails.

You will not understand what I am saying, here, because of where you stand: In the shadow cast by your own intellect. This thing I refer to supersedes intellect by infinite orders of magnitude. Can you imagine, how it looks, to people like me, that people like you, can't even detect it?

This elitism, of which you speak, is interesting. Does the possibility that I may know something you don't, qualify as elitism? That would logically mean that you will never, ever know anything more than you do, now. If only, because it might be known to somebody else, it could therefore not exist.

That is the hallmark of leftist thinking. Only the dogma exists. All else is propaganda.

Not being able to conceptualize something is normal. Undermining someone who can, seems, unfortunately, to be normal, too. But damaging to the larger whole.

People are free to do with their lives as they please. But if results are the aim, then I have something to contribute. Why not just let me do that, and if you disagree, do it on your own fuckin' time. How absurd is it, to disagree with something you clearly can not even detect?

Truth is, when you have no idea of what's going on, you have no contribution to make, other than ridicule. From where you are, that ridicule looks like you being immensely clever. From where anybody who is able to see this thing, is, that you can not see, from where you are, it justs looks like a clown trying to make people laugh. And there's nothing quite so embarrassing as a clown who fails.

You will not understand what I am saying, here, because of where you stand: In the shadow cast by your own intellect. This thing I refer to supersedes intellect by infinite orders of magnitude. Can you imagine, how it looks, to people like me, that people like you, can't even detect it?

This elitism, of which you speak, is interesting. Does the possibility that I may know something you don't, qualify as elitism? That would logically mean that you will never, ever know anything more than you do, now. If only, because it might be known to somebody else, it could therefore not exist.

That is the hallmark of leftist thinking. Only the dogma exists. All else is propaganda.

To be clear my comments weren't directed at you specifically but in general. And i actually typed that but edited it out for some reason - not entirely sure why but whatever. Most of your post seems to be a round about way of defending yourself from some perceived attack.

Nothing you have said here seems to indicate you want to do anything but feel superior.

You are right. That is my sole purpose. These things you claim I do not know, because you do not know them: you are right. I am only interested in feeling superior. I need that, because I am otherwise unable to function. Shame on me. Discovered! Oh dear.

You are right. That is my sole purpose. These things you claim I do not know, because you do not know them: you are right. I am only interested in feeling superior. I need that, because I am otherwise unable to function. Shame on me. Discovered! Oh dear.

Did i say it was your sole purpose. What was it i claimed that you did not know?

The problems with people in society today aren't exactly related to a lack of spirituality. It seems more to be rampant individualism and a deterioration of basic social skills.

But what accounts for the deterioration of social skills and the rise of individualism if not the deterioration of spirituality? I'm asking honestly; perhaps it isn't. The bigger point is that everything is connected on some level, a deterioration of social skills doesn't just happen out of the blue. If some of us assign a lot of importance to spirituality it is because we think it may very well be the skeleton key.

But what accounts for the deterioration of social skills and the rise of individualism if not the deterioration of spirituality?

There is a clear link between the two but correlation does not imply causation and it does not imply that you can't have collectivism without spirtuality. If the problem is a lack of collectivism we should say so instead of dealing through proxies.

I am reminded, often, in my dealings with 'clever' people, of a drowning swimmer, that desperately tries to drag his rescuer down. In real life, I would instinctively do the most reasonable thing: Smack the drowning man into insensibility, and get on with the business. Alas, the internet is not like that. One must watch the drowning man drown, and deal with it.

when crow says that spirituality is not merely a tool, but a basis, my original statement ("without the real lightning in the first place, man would never be able to re-create lightning in the lab") was essentially a metaphor to explain this, borrowing from our earlier posts. real lightning is spirituality. harnessed lightning is science.

edit: or shall I say, lightning, in and of itself, is spirit. lightning explained is science.

Yes but when using metaphor to drive a point anything is possible. If you connect an arbitrary idea with a root/base all of a sudden everything else is derived from that.

This type of mapping between categories is arbitrary because you are under no obligation to preserve any relationships or properties.

If spirituality were the true basis to science then science could not function without it.. Which isn't the case. Spirituality is about the symbolic meaning you attach to reality and your place within it. Science operates completely outside this scope. The two things are mostly unrelated.

Spirituality effects your perception of reality not the actual nature of reality itself.